6.  The applicant, Ms M.B., is a Romanian national who was born in 1958 and lives in Bacău. She was not represented by a lawyer before the Court or before the domestic authorities at any time.
7.  She has been eligible for welfare benefits since 1996 as a disabled person who is unfit to work.
8.  On 14 September 2000 she was diagnosed as suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia”. Since then, she has been registered in the files of several psychiatric institutions.
9.  The applicant is the mother of three children, two of whom, C.-L. and C.-I., born in 1992 and 1994 respectively, were minors at the material time. Her eldest daughter was above the age of majority.
10.  A letter dated 18 January 2011 from the Bacău City Council Guardianship Authority to the Agent of the Romanian Government before the Court states that “according to checks carried out in the database of the Guardianship Authority Section (Compartimentul Autoritate Tutelară) at Bacău City Council, no measures to protect the interests of Ms [M.B.] – who has been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia – have been put in place (nu s-a instituit), either by means of partial or full guardianship”. The letter adds that “likewise, no temporary guardianship arrangements have been made to assist her two children or to protect their interests during their mother’s detention”.
11.  On several occasions since 2000 the applicant has been taken, usually by the police, to the psychiatric department of Bacău Hospital or the Socola psychiatric clinic and admitted for treatment. This happened between 14 September and 13 October 2000, 1 and 15 May 2002, 21 January and 17 February 2003, 12 May and 2 June 2004, 26 October and 4 November 2005, 18 and 31 March 2006, 21 July and 8 August 2006, 25 August and 13 September 2006, and 8 and 22 October 2007.
12.  For example, in a letter dated 11 January 2003 the Izvoru Bereheciului police asked Bacău Hospital to admit the applicant on the grounds that she had been “found undernourished (subnutrită), living in a room without heating and with no material support”. The letter concluded as follows: “We would be grateful if you could take medical action as her behaviour is antisocial”.
13.  The form for the applicant’s admission to the hospital’s psychiatric department, dated 12 May 2004, included a note in the “type of admission” section indicating that the police had taken her to the hospital as a matter of emergency. A letter from the police dated the same day stated that the reason for taking her to the hospital was that she “represented a danger to her neighbours in the village by habitually starting fires in the courtyard of her house, entering local authority premises and frightening children in the street through her aggressive conduct”.
14.  Similarly, a hospital discharge form dated 8 August 2006 stated that the applicant had been “readmitted to hospital after being brought there by the police (se reinternează adusă de poliţie)” on 21 July 2006. An undated letter signed by the applicant requesting admission to the hospital was filed together with her admission form dated 21 July 2006. The letter stated that, should the need arise, her children could be contacted at their care home, the address of which was indicated.
15.  A similar note indicating “type of admission: police” appears on the admission form dated 25 August 2006. A letter from the police dated the same day gave the same reasons as those set out in the letter of 12 May 2004, adding that the applicant had apparently “also been raped during the night of 24 to 25 August 2006”. These events formed the subject of the B. v. Romania case (no. 42390/07, 10 January 2012).
16.  The documents sent to the Court indicate that each time she was admitted to hospital, the applicant left after stays of varying lengths.
17.  According to information supplied by the Government, the applicant was admitted to hospital four times in 2008, spending a total of five months in the psychiatric department for patients with chronic disorders.
18.  In 2009 she was admitted to Buhuşi Hospital six times, spending a total of ten and a half months in the psychiatric department for patients with chronic disorders. In 2010 she was admitted a further seven times, spending a total of more than eleven months in hospital.
19.  The applicant considers that she has been “permanently detained” by the authorities. She has not informed the Court whether she has challenged these measures under Law no. 487/2002 on mental health and the protection of individuals with mental disorders.
20.  In a letter of 31 January 2011 to the Agent of the Romanian Government, the director of Buhuşi Hospital gave assurances that the applicant was being kept in good conditions in the hospital. The other relevant parts of the letter read as follows:
“In reply to your letter no. 319 of 21 January 2011 concerning the case of [M.B.] we wish to provide the following clarifications: ...
[M.B.] is a chronically ill patient who has been admitted to psychiatric clinics since 2000; she has delusions of persecution and prejudice.
She has the right to receive information, as is demonstrated by her correspondence with the ECHR over several years.
In our view, it is surprising that her bizarre, delirious, incoherent allegations – the work of a patient with chronic mental disorders – should be taken into account, thus constantly obliging us to produce replies and official letters running to tens of pages, including archived documents, and to make a sustained effort to refute her blatant lies.
... [M.B.] is not a victim of the Romanian State but rather of the condition from which she is suffering.”
21.  From 2000 the applicant’s two minor children no longer lived with her and, on account of her illness, were placed in a care home for abandoned children by a decision of the Bacău Child Welfare Board.
22.  Two articles published on 9 and 12 September 2000 in the local newspaper Deşteptarea described the unhealthy conditions in which the applicant and her two minor children were living.
23.  The day after the articles were published, the authorities were informed that the two children were being fed “grass, chestnuts, plantain leaves and mushrooms gathered in parks” and that their mother had also refused to enrol them in school.
24.  On 12 September 2000, at the urging of social workers – as is apparent from a report of 13 September 2000 – the children’s maternal grandmother sought assistance from the Bacău County Social Welfare and Child Protection Department (Direcţia Generală de Asistenţă Socială şi Protecţia Copilului – “the DGASPC”) in having the applicant admitted to a specialist hospital on account of her mental illness and violent behaviour. The grandmother stated that the two children did not attend school and sometimes went without food and were left unsupervised, and gave her consent for them to be taken into care. The children were aged eight and six at the time.
25.  Later that day, four welfare officers, two of them from the DGASPC and the other two from a care home for children, went to the applicant’s house accompanied by a police officer. According to a report of 13 September 2000, drawn up following the visit, it was “plain to see” that the applicant was ill, that there was a lack of food in the house and that the living conditions were inadequate; for example, there was no heating or electricity. The report proposed that the children be taken into care as a matter of urgency because “their mother posed a danger to them”.
26.  The social services obtained statements from three of the applicant’s neighbours, who described the appalling conditions in which the two children were living with their mother.
27.  On the same day, the social workers took the children to the care home, after obtaining their grandmother’s written consent.
28.  Two psychosocial assessment reports were drawn up. They described the children’s family situation and social, material and emotional well-being, highlighting their dangerous living conditions. The reports noted that since 15 September 2000 the applicant had been detained in a psychiatric hospital.
29.  In decisions nos. 978 and 979 of 26 September 2000 the Bacău Child Welfare Board ordered the children’s placement in the Centrul Lalelelor (“Tulips”) care home.
30.  The applicant did not appeal against those decisions.
31.  In decisions nos. 1374 and 1375 of 5 December 2000 the same board transferred the children to the Poiana Florilor (“Flower Meadow”) care home in Humeiuş.
32.  The applicant did not appeal against that decision.
33.  On an application by the DGASPC, the Bacău County Court ordered in judgments of 14 December 2005 and 27 January 2006 that the children should remain in care. It also decided that the exercise of parental rights was to be delegated to the director of the care home.
34.  The applicant was neither present nor represented in court.
35.  The children were interviewed by the court in the presence of a social worker from the home.
36.  The court observed that in September 2000 the children had been found in their mother’s house in a state of destitution, without any lighting or food, and that they had not been enrolled in school. It added that their maternal grandmother was too old to look after them. The court concluded that the children’s placement in care was in their interests, while also noting that since they had been in the home they had received regular visits from their mother.
37.  The applicant did not appeal against those judgments.
38.  She subsequently contacted various authorities in an attempt to regain custody of her children.
39.  In two judgments of 17 August 2007 the Bacău County Court transferred the two children to the SOS Satul Copiilor (“SOS Children’s Village”) care home in Humeiuş, following the reorganisation of care homes. It held that their continued placement in care was justified by the fact that they had been emotionally abused by their mother at the time when they had initially been taken into care on 12 September 2000.
40.  The applicant did not appeal against those judgments.
41.  Reports issued by the DGASPC and periodic reports by representatives of Izvorul Berheciului District Council indicate that the children have often been visited by their mother.